146 AMERICAN FARMER'S HORSE BOOK. 



be summarily destroyed, or given over for experiment to a 

 veterinary surgeon, or recognized veterinary establishment. 



" There are a few instances of the spontaneous cure of 

 chronic glanders. The discharge has existed for a consider- 

 able time. At length, it has gradually diminished, and has 

 ceased; and this has occurred under every kind of treatment, 

 and without any medical treatment; but, ill the majority of 

 these supposed cases, the matter was only pent up for awhile, 

 and then, bursting from its confinement, it flowed again in 

 double quantity ; or, if glanders have not reappeared, the 

 horse, in eighteen or twenty-four months, has become far- 

 cied or consumptive, and died. These supposed cases are few 

 and far between, and are to be regarded with much suspicion. 



" As for medicine, there is scarcely a drug to which a fair 

 trial has not been given, and many of them have had a 

 temporary reputation ; but* they have passed away, one after 

 another, and are no longer heard of. The blue vitriol and 

 the Spanish fly have held out longest ; and, in a few cases, 

 either Nattire or these medicines have done wonders, but, in 

 the majority of instances, they have palpably failed. The 

 diniodide of copper has lately acquired some reputation. 

 It has been of great service in cases of farcy, but is- not to 

 be depended on in glanders. 



"Where the life of a valuable horse is at stake, auj. the 

 owner adopts every precaution to prevent infection, he may 

 subject the horse to medical treatment ; but every humane 

 man will indignantly object to the slitting of the nostrils, the 

 scraping of the cartilage, the searing of the gland, the firing 

 of the frontal and nasal bones, a;id to those injections of 

 mustard and capsicum, corrosive sublimate and vitriol, by 

 which the horse has been tortured and the practitioner dis- 

 graced. At the veterinary school, and by veterinary sur- 

 geons, it will be nu)8t desirable that every experiment should 

 be tried to discover a remedy for this pest ; but, in ordinary 

 instances, he is not faithful to his own interest, or that of 

 his neighbors, who does not remove the possibility of dan-^ 

 ger in the most summary way. 



